Localization of 3D Ambisonic Recordings and Ambisonic Virtual Sources

The accurate recording and reproduction of real 3D sound environments is still a challenging task. In this paper, the two most established 3D microphones are evaluated: the Soundfield SPS200 and MH Acoustics’ Eigenmike EM32, according to 1 and 4 order Ambisonics. They are compared to virtual encoded sound sources of the same orders in a localization test. For the reproduction, an Ambisonics system with 24 (12+8+4) hemispherically arranged loudspeakers is used. In order to compare to existing results from the literature, this paper focuses on sound sources in the horizontal plane. As expected, the 4 order sources yield better localization as the 1 order sources. Within each order, the real recordings and the virtual encoded sources show a good correspondence.

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